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The Lone Hill
The most famous location in all of Aidenwode most likely, there have been much more speculations, tales and outright lies regarding this place but here are the known facts to whittle it down some what. 'General Overview' The hill is not part of the natural pattern of the rest of the mountain range, and although this is not uncommon for what most would call a traditional hill, the Lone Hill seems to sit within a low land hollow with more of the appearance of a mountaintop than a rolling hill. Though the upper layers of the hill are no different from the stone of the mountains around there is an abundance of algae within that comes from somewhere, turning the stone a slightly different colour. This algae infused with the soil of the lower half of the hill are most likely responsible for its great reproduction turn over, though any attempts to use this algae or even the soil beyond the hill seem to produce no beneficial effect. This would lead to the theory that the hill emanates something, but all tests by wizard and priest on the hill reveal no energy emanation. The only thing that tests have proved upon the effects of the Lone Hills odd potency is that any attempts to grow any kind of evergreen or pine simply kill off all of the hills produce within the vicinity, as if the chemicals of the pine react at a cascading detrimental level with the red algae, and as such the farmers of the Lone Hill know not to use pine tools of any kind, and would never produce any of the insidious stuff within their woods. Mining attempts made centuries ago upon the more rocky southern slopes of the Lone Hill have revealed very little of use, the stone of the hill being rather too brittle for construction and absolutely no minerals what so ever. Though this may seem dull, the very facts that over four square miles of land surface hold not even trace elements of basic mineral deposit is unheard of in most of the known land. The only recorded discovery of anything interesting are possible sulphur pockets, the likes of which are usually only found with such density miles underground usually. Deeper digs into the mountain by desperate miners ended in disaster after outbreaks of fires and the mine was eventually caved in for safety. One thing the Hill is very well known to produce is the wide variety of hallucinogenic and amyotrophic (eats you from the inside) mushrooms. These are all widely known about and avoided or destroyed these days but some of the rarer kinds, almost unknown of in great abundance at these conditions and climate, such as the Caphalophage mushroom, have been discovered with startling frequency. While these and others can be collected and sold for great prices, this is mostly made illegal by the Church and so such activities have stopped and are discouraged. Any beneficial properties of the mushrooms that grow here are unknown, but certainly they are most likely responsible for tales of odd phenomenon like the water rolling up hill on the full moon on the east side slopes; mirages of multiple identical people being seen in the heights of summer; unexplained dismissals of permanent magic in certain locations and sightings of giant multicoloured hammers tearing across the hill during storms, although the frightening repetition of these unrecorded yet identical phenomena through the centuries is curious. Lastly beyond the odd location, colouration, peculiar fruitfulness, aversion to pine and hallucinogenic mushrooms, one of the most fascinating things about the Lone Hill personally is the way it seems to play with and manipulate one of the other oddities of the Vale; the mist. For one the hill seems to be shrouded by the mist at all of its lower locations even though the mist does not travel that far west anywhere else in the vale. A large amount of eddies form all around the base at startling density. At times where these brief pockets of fast dense swirls have been detected, after days of attempts to predict them, they have given off faint traces of natural transmutation magic. What's more attempts at any kind of Conjuration magic seem to provoke these eddies. This would seem something for much greater examination but once again as with much of the valley when placed within the probing eyes of a wizard of Arcanville these effects seem to not occur, and certainly don’t take place anywhere else within the mist. The reason for this could be an intelligence such as fey or elemental behind the oddity, but there has been no magical or observed evidence of this. In my mind it is simply a fascinating facet of the wonderful and enigmatic master of all of us within the arcane arts; the Loralac, which in and of itself is a reason to delve further into its mysteries , but the council of Arcanville’s head of Scholarship does not agree and our funding has now ended due to no recorded results. Category:Location Category:Drorn Category:Hilsyren Category:Leoshire Category:Aidenwode Vale